Welcome to the hotel california

Warning, this is a long one. It's about my trip to Las Vegas.

I’m definitely thinking about getting my back waxed. I just can’t decide how to do it. Not how to get it waxed, I’ve read up on it, and you just go to a salon and have it done. What I’m talking about is how to style it. Seriously, this is a difficult dilemma. I’d like to get all the hair taken off my shoulders, upper back and then when it gets down to above my butt, I’m a little stuck. It’s a slippery slope. If you go down below the waist, then you might as well just shave your legs too. If you stop above the waist, then you’ve got hair pants. Well sort of, cuz I don’t plan on waxing my front. If a woman doesn’t like chest and tummy hair, then I gotta move on. I mean what do women want now? Do they want like a pre-pubescent dude with no hair? I’m not going there. The leg hair is staying. The arm hair is staying. So when it comes to the lower back, I’m thinking that maybe I’ll leave a little hair there and let it sorta fade into my legs. I have no idea actually. I guess it’s trial and error. Or trial and Hair-er.

I really wanted to talk some about Vegas, but the memories are starting to fade. One thing that happened last week is I got divorced. I have been in the process of getting divorced for about 18 months. Long time. Well it all sort of blew up and we got it settled and hammered out without going to trial. That’s about all I can say. It’s done. It all got wrapped up around 330 last Wednesday and as luck would have it, I boarded a flight for Vegas at 540 that afternoon. It was really luck. Kind of an odd juxtaposition, but as I had just closed the casket on my marriage, I was cruising out to Vegas to help my parents celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Not much interesting on the way out. I had the book The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo with me. I read for basically the whole flight. At one point, I was falling asleep, only I was in the middle seat. So I basically had to try to fall asleep sitting up. That doesn’t work. I would fall asleep and then my head would dip down and I’d wake back up. Did that for about a half hour and then gave up. Got to Vegas, made the fatal error of taking a shuttle out. So an hour later I get to my hotel. We were staying at the Wynn Encore. It was pretty darn posh. Very nice rooms. As soon as I got there I took a bath. They had a TV in the bathroom to watch when you take a bath. That’s kind of a pain in the ass. I don’t know I feel funny about touching the remote when I’m all wet, and I can’t leave the TV on any station for more than a few minutes. It ended up on ESPN, but I wasn’t really watching it. When I got out of the tub, I prolly should’ve just gone to bed, but instead, I went down to gamble. I didn’t have much money, so I was a little nervous. I sat down and played some blackjack.

I do know the basic strategy for blackjack, and if you don’t know the basic strategy, or parts of it, then you are what they call a sucker. And people will probably be pissed at you at the blackjack table if you screw things up. I personally think that it’s all pretty random as far as other players go. If a guy hits hard 14 against a 6, maybe he takes a bust card that would’ve busted the dealer, maybe he take a card that would’ve helped the dealer. Who knows. It is annoying though, because you don’t want to bust when the dealer is showing a bust card. So it’s a stupid move. When I play blackjack, I use a modified basic strategy. There are a bunch of tables that you have to memorize when it comes to doubling and splitting. I don’t remember them all. I know soft doubling is pretty key. You have a soft hand when you have an ace. When you have an ace, you can’t bust on one hit. So you can always hit or double down when you have an ace (depending on house rules). When the dealer is showing a bust card, 5 or 6, maybe 4 sometimes, you should double a soft 18 or lower. Soft doubling is probably the best advantage a player has against the house. High probability that the dealer will bust, you have a chance to double your bet, the odds are in your favor. So I’m pretty aggressive with soft doubling. Some people don’t know this, but you can always ask the dealer what the right play is. They usually know the right strategy. Do you split 2s vs a 4? Ask the dealer. So I played some blackjack. I just wanted to hang around for a while and break even. They did bring me free drinks, which I wasn’t sure if they were still doing. That’s one bonus to gambling, the free beer. Basically I sat there for about an hour, drank a beer, and made 100 bucks. Once I got up, I took off. I just can’t afford to give it back.

That was Wednesday. I cruised back to my room and slept. I got up the next day at like 6 cuz you can’t sleep in Vegas. I texted my Dad and we went to breakfast. We went somewhere in the Wynn and it was so dam good. I had this concoction pulled pork eggs benedict. It was eggs benedict over cornbread with pulled pork, bbq sauce, cheese, potatoes. It was so good. Great way to start the day. Then I went back to my room and got in bed. Got up and went to the health club. Got pumped up like hans and franz, then went to lunch. We all went to the Venetian for lunch. It was pretty cool. They had the gondolas outside, inside it was like Venice I guess. They had street performers doing acrobatic shit and juggling on stilts, singing, and making merry. It was pretty cool. They had a guy that was pretending to be a statue. I wasn’t sure if those guys were mimes or what. We were sitting at the table and we had a basket full of rolls. It’s Vegas, so I asked the group if they thought someone had ever thrown a roll at the statue guy. I said it has to have happened. The thoughts were mixed and people were trying to encourage me to do it. I wasn’t going to embarrass my ps the day before their anniversary, so I declined, I was tempted though. After we ate we got gelato, I went up and took a picture with the statue. I asked him if anyone had ever thrown something at him, he shook his head no. Dam mime. Thursday night as mentioned in a previous blog, I saw Love. It was really good. Then I came back and my whole fam was hanging out in the bar area so I had a beer with them. I got a fat tire and it was pretty good. I thought I didn’t like FT, I guess it’s ok. Next I made a fatal error. I sat down for blackjack. When in Vegas, you gotta do. The problem was that the table limit was raised to 25. The night before it was 15. At 25, I had to cash in 200 just to be able to hang (8 hands). Well I never really got up much, it was mostly a fight to get back to even. Until the dealer went on a run and cleaned me out. Back to the room dejected. I was really pissed. No question losing at Blackjack is a lower low than winning is a high. It doesn’t even out.

The next morning I got up and went back to the Blackjack table to get my money. My fam was going to breakfast. While we were waiting for everyone to get their stuff together, I played some blackjack. The limit was down to 10, so it was good for me. 100 is 10 hands. That’s better for basic strategy cuz BS evens out in the long run. Hence why table limits get raised. I sit down and some sad sap is getting beaten up. It’s just me and him. He was cool, he was in town for his 10th anniversary or something. Once I sat down, he started just killing em. Then he upped his bets and we both started winning. I walked away with 100 and I think he made like 1000. Rockin. So I got my money back. I’m back to scratch. We went to Dennys. Ate. I came back and worked out. I think I sat down and played some more blackjack. There’s a blackjack session that I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure I made another 100 somewhere. The big plan for the day Friday was to go to the pool. They have a pool at the Wynn that allows for European sunbathing. Topless action. I was supposed to go hang out there with my brothers. They ended up bailing, and I went down there with my Ps. Kind of odd. Not bad though. Cuz they had a nice bar there, and my ps got me a fat tire, and we all sat around and chatted. Very nice. They got Pina coladas, and they were the worst PCs I have ever had, and I’m a fan (also like getting caught in the rain FYI). Friday was the warmest day, the day I figured peeps would be out. There were some hotties there, no boobies, I ended up cruising to another pool. I cruised and was pretty lit cuz I hadn’t eaten since Dennys and my ps didn’t do much damage on their PCs, they left them for me.

So I’m sitting there listening to my ipod and some dude starts talking to me. I have no idea what his name is, but he’s from New Jersey. He grew up in New York. The guys must’ve been 73 or so. This guy had a lot of stories. I guess he owned a liquor store and made a lot of money from it. Now he’s retired and traveling around the world. Cool. He definitely had some tall tales. He told me some story about the guy who came to date his daughter. The guy was a black belt (right). So the guy comes to the door and Jersey Guy says, “If you ever harm my daughter in any way I’m going to kick your ass.” Or something like that. Guy says, “I’ll drop you in 40 seconds.” Jersey says, “I’ll drop you in 30.” I guess the thing came to blows and Jersey says he dropped the guy in 10 seconds. Tall Tales. He also played semi pro baseball, and somebody offended him so he hit the guy with three pitches when he came to bat and put him in the hospital or something. Tall tales. Finally the guy left. He was ok. I got in the hot tub. It was full of weird dudes. They were from Australia or something. The problem with the hot tub is that it wasn’t hot. At this point it’s like 3 and starting to cool off. There was a cool breeze. Hot tub should be hot. Then all the aussies light up cigarettes. The hot tub became a smoke cloud. I bailed. I cruised back to the hotel room and got ready for dinner.

We had dinner at the clubhouse to the golf course which is basically a very nice restaurant. It was fun. We drank some wine. My sis in law had sent around a questionnaire for everyone to fill out to tell stories about my parents. Some really funny stuff came out and everyone had a good laugh. I got a tasting menu and I have to say the food was decidedly ok. Not as awesome as I had planned. I really wanted the gumbo, and that ended up being a disappointment. Then they had this sirloin that was tasty but a little rare for me. For dessert they had beignets or some French donut that’s basically a funnel cake. That was ok. The wine was good. I was feeling groovy. After dinner we all went to our rooms and I think everyone wanted to go to bed. Not happening in Vegas though. It was our last night. So we all went to see Kevin James and Ray Romano do stand up at the Mirage. It was pretty good. I thought their bits were funny. Some of their stuff was just ok, and had been beaten down. Ray Romano did a funny bit about ordering porn on the TV at his hotel. Another bit kind of related was about how legalized prostitution makes Vegas so great. Kevin James did a funny bit about people with walkers that have hand breaks and they’re all suped up. They both came out at the end and answered questions. That was kind of pointless. Kevin did one of Ray R’s bits, and he was doing a pretty funny impersonation of RR, and RR got all bent out of shape about it. They decided to do the bit together which was amazing that they both knew it well enough to do it remotely synchronized, although it was hard to follow and rather pointless. As is always the case, the opener was the best part of the show, he was some dude off of RR’s show and he was funny. If you asked the guy behind me, the dead air between jokes was funny. I had a hard time following some of the bits because the guy behind me thought that as soon as a comedian opened their mouth, it was time to laugh. He must’ve been doing whippits or something.

After the show it was like midnight which is 2pm in Chicago. It was time for everyone to go to bed. So we all went back to the hotel. Only I kept going. It’s Vegas Baby! Just down the strip from us was Circus Circus and The Riviera. If you don’t know the Riviera, it’s where they used to tape The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling show back in the day. A classic. I think I played some blackjack there with Nonotchka. So yeah, I head to the Riv. It was pretty dirty and filled with losers. They had some kind of serious cover band playing in this room in front of basically no one. Then there’s a bar outside of there which looks like it caters to ex convicts. The one thing they had which spoke to my proclivities was dancing girls by the blackjack tables. They had two girls pole dancing, scantily clad, while you sat down and played Blackjack. Good idea. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to play though, so I checked the ladies and then cruised to CC. Circus Circus was a total dive. I figured what the heck, so I sat down and played some blackjack. The chips were so old, that they were dirty, they had grime caked onto them and I grimaced every time I had to touch one. Def needed to wash hands after that. I sat down with some people who were like 19 and just engaged or just married. They had like 20 dollars to gamble with and I think they might have been mentally challenged. The girl hit a hard 17 or something against a dealer 6, I wanted to tackle her. At the Encore, when you hit hard 17, they need the pit bosses approval, which should tell you that it’s a bad idea. Some guys sat down that seriously looked shady, they were speaking another language and probably had ridden camels to school at some point in their lives. I got down and battled back to scratch, so I left. I was gonna go back to the Encore, but something about the Riv spoke to me. I stopped there and sat at the tables w/ female entertainment. That worked out pretty well. The people were pretty cool. They didn’t know what they were doing, so they thought I was Amarillo Slim or something. I kept getting blackjacks like I owned the place. I was tipping out pretty generously to the dancers, and to the dealer who was female and stacked. I still walked out of there with over a hundred. I think that put me up around 200 on the trip. I don’t think I’ve ever left Vegas with more money than I came with, so it was time to head home. On my way home I grabbed some of the complimentary literature on the street. Vegas has a nice system for sharing information, the research proved enlightening.

The next day I got up. Ate breakfast with the group. We went to this place the Pepper Mill. It looked like a good place to hang. They had like a speakeasy in back with fireplaces and plush seating. I think a lot of “deals” go down in there. Probably good people watching at night. We had flights to catch, so it was off to the airport and back to chitown. I can’t wait to head back to Vegas though, it’s always a good time.